


Low Tide

by teaandhunni



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Mer AU!!, anyways hang in there with me ok, its gonna gg (get gay), of course, who knows if the rating will change idk what constitutes teen and up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-10-13
Packaged: 2018-08-14 19:39:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8026453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teaandhunni/pseuds/teaandhunni
Summary: Keith is emotionally compromised and really likes late night walks on the shore. Lance intends to make sure no one is encroaching on his territory and might be a little swept up by this stranger. (a mer AU! I always see Keith as a merperson in fanart but Lance seems so keen on the ocean and looks like he'd enjoy sunbathing on a nice rock. So I'm contributing?)





	1. Chapter 1

Keith padded along in his sneakers, worn with age and use. His breath came and left in thick clouds as he went. Another night, decidedly alone, he’d thought. It was better this way. Nice, even. Keith needed it now and again. He often found himself plagued with discomfort and misunderstanding.  
Yes, it was better this way.  
Keith heard the dip and slosh of displaced sand under his shoes-- felt the weight of his feet sinking and rising with each step.  
Chilled, he pulled his sweatshirt closer to his rigid frame. The tide rushed through his head, washing over his racing thoughts and pulling them out to sea. Freezing as it was, Keith found comfort in the continuity and eternity of the ocean. All was quiet save for his hushed footsteps and the rolling of the waves.

He came upon a dock at the end of the stretch of land where earth met sea. Around the bend, a tall crag hung overhead, worn with erosion from high tide. Keith sat himself at the edge of the dock, crossing his legs and curling into himself. The water lapped at the old wooden fixture below, catching Keith’s wandering eyes. In the water he could see the skies, foggy and dripping with melted starlight.

Keith let out a small sigh, a whisper in a storm of crashing waves. It felt a bit lonely, sure, but the night was aglow and brisk and the sting of cold on his cheeks made him feel more concrete. He thought he’d stay awhile.

Slipping his phone from the pouch in his hoodie, he flicked it to life and the screen read “11:42PM”. It was getting a bit late to be wandering around. Tucking it back in amongst a snare of miscellaneous, Keith stood and turned to leave his post at the old rickety dock. A sound caught him by surprise—the plunk of pocket change into seawater. His headphones nearly went along with it, furled around the coins as they slipped away.  
Keith grasped hurriedly to catch them before they could escape into the vastness below.

“Shit,” he whispered, stuffing them into his pants pocket this time.  


The water stirred unusually as Keith distracted himself righting his clothes. He noticed only as the sea began to ripple curiously in one spot below.

He found himself taking steps back, but his eyes still fixed themselves on the water. _A fish, maybe? But they wouldn’t be surfacing near the dock. What kind of fish would do that?_

Keith stuffed his cold hands into the large pocket of his sweatshirt, still eyeing the ocean tentatively. _What the fuck is down there?_

Keith had seen some spooky shit, but this was definitely up there. And something was, well, down there.

A person surfaced from below, bare skin radiant in the starlight.

 _Okay, what the fuck.  
_ Keith stumbled in his footing, his breath catching in his lungs and his heart hammering away at his ribs.

“Were these yours?” The stranger asked, voice just loud enough to overpower the crash and lull of low tide. Keith hesitantly let his eyes leave this person’s gaze in favor of meeting their hands. His change was there.  
“Oh,” Keith sputtered.  
“I’ll take that as a yes?”  
“What are you—uh— doing out here?” Keith asked, though his first instinct was to quickly pedal himself as far away as possible. It was the middle of the night, and someone thought it was a brilliant idea to take a swim?  
The sleek, bronze skinned boy laid the coins out in a messy pile atop the dock.

“What I always do, of course,” He replied, a bit too vaguely for Keith’s liking. The swimmer scratched his head quizzically at the question. “Well, I could ask you the same!”

Keith stifled a sigh and debated whether to disregard this late night swimmer. No one in their right mind wants to swim alone in icy water in the middle of the night. You’d surely become hypothermic.

“I don’t think I need to….explain myself to a,” Keith paused, disregarding the insulting names he’d been tempted to use, “stranger,”  
“Hmmm…” The swimmer was a bit sing-songish now.  
“I’d say you do if you wanna share the same spot.”  


The boy was slight yet toned, as far as Keith could tell in the dim light. Probably from all that swimming, if he had to guess. He watched as the visitor (or perhaps he was more the visitor) hoisted himself a bit higher up onto the dock, so that his elbows were perched upon it.

“Share?” Keith tilted his head subconsciously. “Just what do you do here? If you want to swim can’t you swim somewhere else? You’ve got, like, a whole ocean…so…” Keith trailed off as he began muttering.

“Um, rude, first of all,” The boy began, waggling a finger in Keith’s general direction.

“And second of all, I can swim wherever I goddamn well want to.”

Keith made a face at that.

He really, _really_ wanted to ask what this person was doing swimming way out here in the middle of the night. But something held him back. He tensed up and disregarded it.

“I’ll leave,” Keith said hushedly.

“Wait, wait, you don’t need to do that,” The mysterious boy pulled himself up a bit further on the dock, skin positively dripping with starlight. His hair was slick and matted up with drying seawater.

“I-I do,” Keith stammered, clamming up and turning to head home. This whole situation was strange and too dreamlike and he couldn’t comprehend it.

“Please—uh,” The boy began, catching Keith’s attention. He kept his back turned.

“Can I have your name?”  
  
He paused. “Keith,”

He carried on into the night, his thoughts somewhere far away in the stars. 

 

* * *

 

 

         A week had passed since that strange night, and Keith tried to keep it at the back of his mind. He still wasn’t entirely certain of what had happened or why.

Keith had opted to staying home and climbing out his window and onto the roof most nights that week. The experience wasn’t nearly the same, but he got to see the stars and the vantage point was a good one.

Today, though, Keith was on his way back from an evening class and headed towards the beach. He wasn’t sure why, exactly, but his feet carried him weightlessly with familiarity. He felt his bones shift under his skin and made little effort to redirect himself. Keith asked himself what he was hoping to find at the beach. Nothing, per usual, would’ve been just fine. An inkling of his heart hoped for the stranger to return, though. Not that he’d admit it to himself.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Same as before, Keith made his way down the gentle slopes of sand to the tide. This time, however, the sun hadn’t quite dipped below the horizon. It cast a warm orange and pink glow across the water, and it splayed across his skin and hair. Keith cast his gaze across the beach to the low hanging dock, eying it with suspicion and a gleam of wanting. It wasn’t for selfish reason or with high hopes, but rather, he was drawn to the spot.

Keith stooped down and sat, noticing now some old pennies and dimes that’d been left on the edge of the dock. It wasn’t nearly all of the change that’d been left there from before. Perhaps it belonged to someone else.

It was probably his.

He flicked the coins off the edge of the dock, sparing them only a glance before casting them out aimlessly.

He sat.

He waited.

Then, he realized that he was, in fact, waiting. He was waiting for the person he’d given his name to. Keith scoffed at the idea, though he felt it to be true. He slumped into himself, leaving his thoughts aside and allowing his head to be filled with noise. For a place he’d frequented to destress, he sure felt complicated.

Night was approaching rapidly, and Keith was growing tired. He’d been listening to music softly, intermingled with the sound of the rising tide. By this time, the waves nearly reached his sneakered feet. The boy chanced a dip of his toes into the water, and he immediately regretted it. It was cold and biting and left his shoe soggy. As he retracted quickly, a deft hand caught him by the ankle and pulled his foot back towards the water.

Keith yelped in surprise, bracing himself against the wooden frame and holding on for dear life.

“Woah, chill out!” A voice from the water laughed a bit.

“Wh—you! No, I—what are you doing?!” Keith twisted himself and tried desperately to free himself, to which the other acquiesced.

“What do you mean? You had your foot in the water,” He seemed confused now. Everyone who came to the beach wanted to swim, or sunbathe, or _something,_ right?

“That’s not important! I—,” Keith gestured to the air around him.

“You were going swimming, no?”

“I wasn’t!”

“Hm… if you don’t like the water, why do you spend so much time looking at it?” He got a bit closer in hopes of getting a proper look at Keith.

“That’s… well,”

Keith met the eyes of the other and flinched, pulling further into himself.

“Are you afraid of it?” The one in the water chanced a guess, now looking curious and trying to peek up underneath Keith’s bangs that coasted over his eyes.

“Of course not.” Keith muttered, putting his headphones away. He seemed a bit calmer, though still simmering.

The swimmer placed a hand on the edge of the dock, where Keith’s legs were rigidly folded against each other. The hand looked glossy and chilled. It made him pause to stare.

“Are you…cold?” Keith asked quietly, voice swept up and carried off by the sea.

“Me?” He asked, almost incredulously. “I don’t get cold, really. I’ve got a warm heart.” The boy winked and it was cheesy and disgusting.

Keith made a face, again.

“That’s impossible. You haven’t even got a wetsuit,” Keith added, in wholehearted disbelief.

The other looked puzzled. He looked around at the water and then himself.

“I need one?”

“Well, yes, or at least—god, I don’t know how you haven’t died out there yet,” Keith was interrupted mid thought, trailing off when he saw the swimmer’s eyes dart to the left of him.

Keith turned his head briefly, being blinded by a set of flashlights. No one should’ve been out this late, but Keith supposed he could say the same for himself. He squinted, displeased at the company.

When he turned back to face the ocean, the other was gone.

Soundlessly, and without word. He’d faded into the roaring ocean.

And there was Keith’s pocket change, resting on the dock again.

 

Keith picked himself up, mumbling to himself as he put his earbuds back in for the walk home. The night was cloudy just as it had been a week ago. He trailed along the side of the open road, the sound of crunching gravel beneath him.

He glanced back over the boundary separating him from the ocean, and all was dark. The only street lamps were those up near the road, leaving the beach an unknown. Keith furrowed his brow, trying to make out the waves in the distance. They were heard, but unseen. He’d be back again. And this time he wanted a name to put to a face.

 

Later that night, Keith climbed into bed with only thoughts of the nearby ocean. Every time he clicked his phone on to see what ungodly hour he had reached without sleep, he still had images of that stranger in his head. _What an idiot. Who goes swimming in the dead of night? They’re gonna die out there._ Keith rolled over and put his phone back onto his night stand.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this update is a bit short! I didn't want to add any filler to this bit so I tried to be concise with it! I hope you'll enjoy it :") Bear with me aaahh


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aahh I'm sorry it's been like a month I've been busy but I'm not givin up on this one, at least not yet   
> also pidge is here now >:)

The next day, Keith felt as though he’d been floating through the hours. His eyes gave a tell-tale sag of sleeplessness and his face had gone pale. His eyes were glazed over and distant, though everyone recounted him checking his phone every so often in his zombie-like state. He was waiting for the day to be through, to be sure. His head was muddled and full of those thoughts you’d think of before bed. Most of which regarding his swimmer friend.

“Keith!” A small and cozy looking student ran up behind him, their long sleeves billowing slightly in the breeze.

“Oh, Pidge,” He blinked in contemplation as they walked, not paying the other much mind.

“What’s with you?” Pidge slapped Keith upside his backpack, jostling his books and pencils and trying to get his attention.

“Mmm, thinking,”

“About?”

“Things.” He replied in a monotone.

“C’mon now,” Pidge prodded Keith in the side with a petit finger.

“I’ll brief you once I’ve figured out what’s going on,” He gave a half-hearted laugh, carding his fingers through his hair and sweeping his bangs out of his eyes.

Pidge gave a very calculating gaze as they kept up with him. Their round glasses glinted in the afternoon sun.

“Alright, but I won’t let you off the hook. You’ve been acting more bizarre than usual lately.” They gave a cheeky grin.

“More bizarre than my conspiracy theories and alien hunting?”

“Well…”

They both laughed.

 

Keith raced towards the sunset, the things in his backpack carelessly being tossed around as he found a new excitement instilled in his step. He’d been so tired all day, and suddenly, as classes ended, he couldn’t have been more relieved. He flitted through the crosswalks and down the sidewalks past speeding cars. The beach was just over the horizon, waiting for him patiently.

He was determined, today, to learn more about this mysterious person taking late night swims. It was no longer just about a nice place to reflect in the dark. He passed by classmates and flocks of strangers, avoiding eye contact in favor of giving this journey his full attention. That was the thing about Keith. Once he’d set out to do something, it was hard to get him to go back or divert him from it. Stubborn, some would call it. Keith preferred to think of himself as strong-minded.

The tide chased his heels as he made his way to the old rickety dock. Sand seeped in over the ankles of his shoes. He could care less. It was part of the experience. Keith glanced out over the horizon, scanning the waves for anyone but after-school beachgoers. Nothing. He hunkered down in his usual spot, wishing the joggers and surfers away. And so they went.

An hour or two had passed by and the sun dipped below the surface, bringing with it a breeze and crisp night air. Autumn was nearly in full swing now. Keith’s skin burned under the cold air.

And then, he did something impulsive. As he was known to do.

Keith took off his socks and sneakers, shaking the sand from them and resting them atop the dock. He wiggled his toes a bit, dipping them into the water.

Cold.

It burned. It stung and it was icy and unforgiving and he hated it. _Why would anyone intentionally swim in this water?_

He pulled his toes away from the rippling tides, but not before a somewhat familiar hand reached out to him.

“Ahhh, no!” Keith snapped, yanking his leg away and holding it close. “Not this again!”

Keith felt ridiculous for having put his feet in the water. His cheeks burned more than usual.

“C’monnnnn why do you keep teasing like that?” The one in the water whined dramatically.

“Teasing?” Keith looked baffled, and if his hair could’ve stood on end, it would’ve been.

“Get in the water with me,”

“No.”

“But you want to, right?”

“I don’t,” Keith stammered out, his wet feet growing colder. This sucked.

“Why are you always out here at night?” The swimmer paused. “Not that I mind _that_ much.”

“What’s your name?” Keith asked, leaning forward from his perch to chance a better look at the boy.

“One question at a time, please,” He laughed softly to himself. Keith didn’t find it very funny. “I’ll give you my name if you tell me why you like hanging out on my side of the beach.”

“Your--?” Keith began incredulously. This seemed childish. He huffed. “It’s a nice spot, and people don’t normally come this far down from the walkway. It’s good for thinking.”

“Brooding, you mean?” His unlikely companion jabbed, putting a sleek hand up on the dock and pulling himself a bit closer against the tide.

“Can I have your name?” Keith ignored his comment and quirked an eyebrow.

“Ah, if you must,” He rolled his head to one side on his shoulders, mussing his bangs with his free hand. “I’m Lance.”

Definitely a showboat.

“Lance…” Keith uttered, hushed.

“and Keith,” Lance said with a trill, extending his hand to the one sitting above him “Come on in, take a dip!”

“Uh, no,” Keith had made up his mind, his legs shivering where they lie.

“But the water’s nice!”

“It’s not, you dingus. I’ll freeze my balls off,” Keith grimaced, shrugging his hoodie further around him.

“Mmmm,” Lance hummed in contemplation. “Then I’ll sit with you,” He nodded, seeming very proud of himself. “Can you meet me at the sand?”

“What, you mean, right there?” Keith gestured to the space to his left. “Why don’t you just come up here?”

“Just do it, Keith,”

And there was something about the way Lance had said his name that made Keith move, stuffing his socks into his shoes and slogging them along with him to the shoreline. He plunked himself down in the sand just above where the waves had left the sand muddied and wet.

He watched as a head of messy hair bobbed up to the surface before him, slinking out of the water effortlessly and then half-sliding half-pulling himself onto shore. Keith stared quizzically at the form next to his.

He paused for what, he thought, must have been a very long time. He was suddenly lightheaded.

Lance, however, paid it no mind and scooted closer through the sand. His lower half was scaled and shimmering in reflected light, covered in droplets of saltwater and glossed over with age. It was a beautiful color-- a light misty greyish blue.

Keith was agape. He felt like this must be some elaborate joke.

“What is—what are—?” Keith stuttered and moved his arms nonsensically. He wasn’t quite sure what he was trying to get across.

“You act like you didn’t see this coming,” Lance chuckled, eyeing Keith with a brow raised.

“I have to go,” Keith looked around, anywhere but at Lance.

“I know for fact that’s not true,” He grabbed at Keith’s long sleeves, urging him to stay. The boy still wore a look of shock, bewilderment, and perhaps fear of all this being unreal.

“It’s okay, I know you must be surprised,” Lance pulled the fabric of Keith’s jacket further between his thumb and index.

“You’re a—a,” Keith swallowed.

Lance waited.

“A fish?”


End file.
